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This afternoon, CNN’s Rick Sanchez interviewed Carl Paladino. The media here locally are so enamored of Paladino and rely on access to him that in 6 months, they haven’t asked him as many pointed & tough questions as Sanchez did in one CNN segment.

Among the news broken, Paladino doesn’t consider Islam to really be a religion, but an “ideology”, and he opposes abortion under any circumstances, even going so far as mandating that a rape or incest victim bring the baby to term.

I just got off the phone with a freind out west who laughingly quizzed me about Paladino. I expected people I know in other places to perhaps mention this, but I was surprised at how humiliating I actually felt simply because he’s from this area.
Tea Baggers are ignorant morons. THAT is how history will remember them.

Bedanko writes: “The media here locally are so enamored of Paladino and rely on access to him that in 6 months, they haven’t asked him as many pointed & tough questions as Sanchez did in one CNN segment.” Good point. Local media should be embarrassed. They have had months to ask Carl. Paladino tough questions but they we’re up to it. They could have asked him why millions of taxpayer dollars ended up in the pockets of Carl Paladino and how he can claim that he’s not part of the establishment. And now he bites the hand that feeds him. Isn’t that the definition of hypocracy, Mr. Paladino? The NY Times is right. Paladino is an Albany insider who spread a lot of money around and now reaps the benefits, and claims to be one of the little guys.

Rick Sanchez is a good fellow but he is not known as a tough interviewer, yet he destroyed Paladino by persistently asking rational questions. Paladino tried to duck some questions but Sanchez wouldn’t back down. Paladino’s answer to the mosque-eminent domain question was very weak, especially for a lawyer. I would have thought that Paladino would be prepared for that question but he wasn’t. Saying that it wasn’t a case of freedom of religion sounded foolish. And saying that he would impose restrictions on the extended area around ground zero, as far as the ash cloud drifted (because it contained human remains) would encompass most of Manhattan and is nonsense.

Unusual bedfellows Ed Koch, Alphonse D’Amato and Carl McCall announced that Paladino is unacceptable as Gov. Does Paladino have any establishment support in NY? Of course, he would claim that the establishment is the problem, as if he were apart from it. He is becoming the biggest embarrassment to Buffalo since the blizzard. We don’t deserve this.

Carl need to stop talking about these types of issues and focus on what NYers are really mad about – big dysfunctioning government and wasteful spending. It’s about the money and our lack thereof that we want fixed.

We ALL want dysfunctional Albany fixed, but not by a racist, misogynist, bomb throwing hypocrite who built a fortune from taxpayer funds funneled through Albany, by pols paid off with campaign contributions. This man is an Albany insider pretending to be a little guy.

Why would I vote out 3-men-in-a-room in favor of one-man-in-a-room? Paladino has claimed for himself dictatorial powers and promised to violently purge (unless you have a different definition of the whole “baseball bat” metaphor) elected officials and state employees from there. His views about government are wrong and extreme, as are his views on abortion, Park51, Islam in general, and what he considers to be “funny” and “jokes”. I hate to tell you this, Mike, but Paladino really isn’t qualified to be the CEO of this state. He has already expressly stated that he would only be governor to New Yorkers who aren’t Muslim, since Islam isn’t a religion entitled to any rights, but a lifestyle.

The only thing differentiating Paladino from Christine O’Donnell is that Paladino loves pornography, and O’Donnell doesn’t.

Sorry, Mike is right. I don’t look for a candidate with cardinal virutes, and I don’t expect to find any. I trust our rule of law to stand between us and depotism, not the supposed virtues of any particular politican. Paladino is cynically using his own non-issues to drive popularity (Park51 for example), and he can do nothing to interfere with abortion rights in NY. He can, however, affect taxing and spending.

Here is my Voting 101 – identify what powers a particular political office has, and then find the person who you think will do the best job with those powers. I am not going to ask my town councilmember his views on the Afghanistan War any more than I care about Paladino’s or Cuomo’s views on abortion.

So: the fact that Paladino views women as breeding machines shouldn’t disqualify him from being Governor because the NYS legislature won’t ever pass a bill restricting abortion rights. Probably. Unless the teabaggers really are sweeping the country as they claim, and a few more Paladinos/O’Donnells get elected to the NYS leg, right?

I wouldn’t vote for this clown for any elected position anywhere, ever.

@ Alan: How many of Paladino’s policies – one man in a room, strip abortion rights, smelly camps, etc – do you think he’ll actually be able to implement, legally or politically? Honestly. My answer is almost none. So who cares?

@ Rob: Same question. I don’t expect you to vote for Paladino. I don’t think I’ll vote for Paladino. But be smart enought to see through the crap. When you vote for your local state legislator, then I’d consider their views on abortion, as issue #10 perhaps. There is a tiny chance in hell an abortion bill may come up in the Assembly or Senate, and they may vote on it. But there is a 100% chance the governor will have the chance to work on a budget 4 times, so I’m going to spend more time thinking about that. You should feel free get riled up by whatever red meat is fed to you each day.

He won’t be able to implement any of them. In fact, the best case scenario is as follows:

1. Paladino sweeps to victory in a wave of fedupedness and voter anger. Sort of a latter-day Bill O’Loughlin.

2. Paladino starts to try and act dictatorial – not like a Stalin, but more like a Tito – a kinder, gentler purge and mothereffing of everyone.

3. In so doing, Paladino will encounter wall after wall of obstruction, defiance, and downright war. Albany will essentially stop working, and the first few months of this nonsense will very closely resemble (if not completely surpass) the dysfunction-sur-dysfunction of last year’s Senate coup.

4. In the end, Paladino will have accomplished absolutely nothing. He will have tried to bring about revolutionary – not evolutionary – change to a place that still does operate within a representative democratic framework. I distinctly recall Spitzer being criticized and getting nowhere whilst trying to be the “steamroller”. Paladino and his Louisville Slugger will fare even more poorly.

5. Paladino will resign with a Palinesque flourish of victimhood, claiming (among other things) to want to spend more time with his family, leaving us with some nobody no one ever heard of as a caretaker governor for the remainder of his term.

Thanks! When it comes to racist, misogynist serial liars, I actually get riled up quite easily. And I’m sure his promises to cut spending and clean up Albany are worthy of being believed. Just ask Dave DiPietro.

Btw (and speaking of “red meat”), Carl provided a possible answer to your great conundrum, “How big should the mosque-free ‘footprint’ around Ground Zero be?” Carl’s answer: as far as the wind-blown dust containing pulverized human remains spread. I guess if you buy the “hallowed ground” theory that actually sounds workable, though you’d still have to decide if the dust actually had to reach the (hallowed) ground, or if landing on the roofs of all the fast food joints and strip clubs around GZ would count.

The question is not how many crazy ideas Paladino can legally implement, the question should be, is he a leader of high character. If you say there are no such leaders, you cast yourself as a cynic, not to mention throwing out the babes with the bathwater. This isn’t difficult. You find the best leader you can. You find a good person, and ol Carl is not a good person IMHO.

All Y’all knuckle heads should give a shit if the next Governor is Jack Armstrong, the All American Boy. (those of you under 55 look that up). As long as the man gets the job done, I wouldn’t care if he was polka dot white/black, or sky blue pink. Whether he swears like a Marine or not.
If you haven’t figured out by now that politicians are fallible human beings, and like most all of us have done things we shouldn’t have and aren’t proud of, you need more than voting 101.
I’m not saying Vote for Carl, but ya better not vote for another idiot like Spitzer, Patterson, Cuomo, Carey, and some of the other idiots you’ve put in there. Almost none of you are old enough to remember the Empire State, governed by Tom Dewey and Nelson Rockefeller. Plenty of good paying jobs, Rocky was a Liberal Republican—never met a tax he didn’t like, but at least everybody had good paying jobs to pay the taxes.

Very hypothetically (since he’s very unlikely to win), a better best case would be if instead of Point 2 of your scenario, a Gov. Paladino would hire as chief of staff a very respected fiscal conservative experienced in state government – for example, John Faso – and delegate responsibility for policy details. He could also appoint an economic team of serious advisers – maybe such as E.J. McMahon, David Malpass, etc. I’m sure there’s many possibilities.

They could have four years of budget proposals, vetoes, and other executive branch powers with which to try making real changes without concerns about re-election. Paladino has said he’d serve only one term.

A big difference between what Paladino could do and what Pataki did (and Lazio likely would have) is Pataki focused so much on being re-elected and was eager to cozy up with unions and other status quo interest groups.

Yes, Starbuck, Paladino could do that. But he’s not running to delegate responsibilities to a John Faso. He’s running to take a baseball bat to Albany, throw Shelly Silver in jail, and preserving the anti-Mohammedan sanctity of anywhere the 9/11 dust cloud flew.

Under normal circumstances, a fringe candidate like Carl would have to move to the middle on a lot of things and propose smart ideas like your suggestion. But I think Carl and his advisors think that Carl’s cult of personality is so strong that it will do for him in November exactly what it did the other day. He won’t apologize, equivocate, explain, or do anything differently over the next 6 weeks than he’s done so far.

Wow…what a circle jerk this forum is…let’s see…how about this reform…steam roller, hooker loving and paranoid (see state police) Spitzer cleaning up the mess, followed by a cheating, lying, thief (see world series) and as some in the state police say “druggie”. Theres real reform for NYS. Lets not even start looking at those 7 Dems on Carl’s latest mailer. More of the same corrupt crap with Cuomo…count on that a** patters.

Carl probably didn’t read the letter the Pope wrote 2 days ago to the Ambassador to the Vatican From Germany to form his latest opine on Abortion, but this snippet gives those of us who know that death is the only certainty in life something to think about.

It is a principle of the Christian faith, anchored in Natural Law, that the human person be protected precisely in a situation of weakness. The human being always has priority in regard to other objectives. The new possibilities of biotechnology and medicine often put us in difficult situations that seem to walk on the razor’s edge. We have the duty to study diligently to what point these methods can be of help to man and where, instead, it is a question of the manipulation of man, of violation of his integrity and dignity. We cannot reject this progress, but we must be very diligent. Once one begins to distinguish — and this now happens often in the maternal womb — between a worthy life and a life unworthy of living, no other phase of life will be safe, and even less so old age and infirmity

Hank, I don’t really care what the Pope or his people think. I just think that the victim of rape or incest shouldn’t be legally required – by a man, much less – to carry offspring created thereby to term. Frankly, such a requirement would take a single act of violence and spread it out on a second-by-second basis for 9 months of shame and hatred.

The fact that anybody would advocate forcing a raped woman to ccarry her rapist’s offspring to term is….sick. Just. Plain. Sick. I’m so tired of holy rollers deicding that everyone should have to abide by their twisted sense of reality based on their fairytale beliefs.

It’s really very simple, kids. If Spitzer is/was out because he got in on with a prostitute, then Carl is a non-starter because he’s got a love-child out of marriage. You can’t condemn one and ignore the other without being pretty absurd. Done!

For his run, he hired political campaign experts – Caputo, Stone, others. Presumably sometimes he’s taken their advice, delegated some responsibilities in their fields of experience, etc. He could have kept all political campaign decisions to himself and local friends, but he didn’t. And probably in his business over the years he’s set the agenda but hired experts he listens to and delegated major responsibilities.

If lightning strikes and he somehow wins, it’s possible he might do that for governing too.

It amazes me that tea baggers,the religious right and other zealots claim they are concerned with Albany corruption yet declare their support for a candidate of low character. Most of the guys that I grew up with in HS were pigs and slobs at some point in our Animal House lives, but god help us if we didn’t grow out of that phase. And yet, some didn’t. I know a few, but wouldn’t elect them dog catcher. I don’t care how angry they are.

And Cuomo has good character? He laid the groundwork for the housing bubble and the subsequent economic collapse. I guess the progressives give him a free pass because his heart was in the right place. How pathetic.

Mike In WNY, you see character assassination is all the progressives have. They can’t face the fact that the idiotic interventions by the revered bureaucrats/politicians like Cuomo they support contributed to the housing bubble or any of the other bad behavior associated with economic collapse.. The facts be damned! It’s all “dipshit theories”, the ramblings of angry teabaggers, “racist idiots”.
It makes them feel better about themselves, better than facing the fact that all they supported has been a monumental disaster with new disasters waiting in the wings.

Before I vote, I always go to D’Amato, Koch, and McCall to get their expert advice. D’Amato is as crooked as one of those pens the chiropractor gives you in the mall. Koch died 25 years ago, and McCall, who is he again ? Didn’t he used to play for the Knicks? Paladino is certainly not politically correct, but who cares? The guy has more solid positive ideas than any of the phonies in Albany now.

Why is it that nobody on the far right or in the teabagger movement recognizes that Carl PERSONIFIES special interest? The degree of hypocrisy engaged in by these loons is….well…I guess it’s predictable. What else should you expect from a party of nypocritical loons, but hypocrisy and looney behavior. Also, apparently, immoral acts are only immoral when the other side commits them. Hy-poc-ri-sy. Look it up.

@Carl “Ray: The right’s no better. Don’t pretend they are. Unless you think “Status Cuomo” is an original idea…”
I’ve never defined “progressives” as a purely left wing thing. If you mean the right wing progressives are no better, you are right. The progressive record whether left wing or right wing speaks for itself—they both suck and neither will admit it.

Alan, I hope we can count on you to pay as much attention to Prince Andrew’s tenure at HUD as you have to Paladino–so your readers have information on both candidates.

A nice place to start would be his treatment of Inspector General Susan Gaffney, as a result of her efforts to audit his “Good Neighbors” program. Then his pressure on Fannie and Freddie to increase their proportion of crap loans, leading to you-know-what.

Rob, perhaps you should read the liberal Village Voice and their description of Cuomo’s role in causing the housing bubble. Yes, I’m a libertarian, which generally means I pay more attention to facts, actions and consequences than the typical progressive.

Andrew Cuomo, the youngest Housing and Urban Development secretary in history, made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country’s current crisis. He took actions that—in combination with many other factors—helped plunge Fannie and Freddie into the subprime markets without putting in place the means to monitor their increasingly risky investments. He turned the Federal Housing Administration mortgage program into a sweetheart lender with sky-high loan ceilings and no money down, and he legalized what a federal judge has branded “kickbacks” to brokers that have fueled the sale of overpriced and unsupportable loans. Three to four million families are now facing foreclosure, and Cuomo is one of the reasons why.

Then come back and tell me what was factually incorrect about that story. Comments that simply deride the NY Times as a liberal rag (or any variant thereof) will be summarily deleted. Have a great day!

Alan, that Times article is a good example of why HUD, Fannie and Freddie should be abolished.
You can’t reform monsters like those, you have to kill them.
If you think that article vindicates Coumo of the charges made against him, I didn’t see it. When push came to shove, he caved to lobbyists, Fannie and Freddie.

I read the NY Times article just before reading the Village Voice piece. The Village Voice piece is succinct while the Times pieces waffles between spin and facts while trying to create wiggle room for Cuomo.

The Village Voice published theirs in 2008. The NY Times chimed in with the spin during the current campaign.

It is not so much that the Times lied, it is the tenor of their portrayal that is misleading.

For starters, the Times skips over Prince Andrew’s tenure as assistant HUD Secretary under Cisneros, beginning in 1993.

They ignore his empire-building at that time, political manipulation of Empire Zone designations, lavish spending on press events to announce anti-poverty programs, millions of dollars spent on travel and self-promotion, $900,000 in taxpayer money spent on a brochure touting his accomplishments.

And, of course, no mention of his thuggery against the Inspector General.

All in all, kind of a Classic Comics version of the story. I’m sure Buffalo Pundit can be more thorough–if he wants to.

Why is it that Spitzer was slammed by republicans when he cheated on his wife with prostitutes, while Paladino cheated on his wife and has an illegitimate child yet is championed by them? Just asking…

The same reason that a teleprompter was prominently displayed next to the podium at yesterday’s “Value Voters Summit” (aka wingerpalooza) featuring stalwarts such as Michele Bachmann, Mike Huckabee, reformed covenite Christine O’Donnell and others of their ilk, and nobody batted an eye. IOKIYAR.

If Carl Paladino wins the race, make no mistake that a mandate weill not go forth from the people of NYS. The shenanigans are over. Time to earn your paycheck. Get with the program or get out of the way.